1205-1207 Angier Avenue- Pope Mattress Co.

I used to drive the length of Angier Ave. daily (when I was taking care of a friend who we had moved out to way-east-Angier). That drive took me past the one-day-maybe-beautiful-again Angier/Driver business district, and then to this corner.

There's so so much that could be done again along Angier. And I'm not just talking about finding the prostitutes a better way of living.

It is too bad about their condition, and the owners should either have to sell them or have them taken away from them. Commercial structures in Durham's value/prices are going through the roof [no pun intended with this structure!], and even this area will one day be expensive.

I still feel that the main reason Durham's bureaucrats are so short-sighted about wanting historic structures torn down is that Mayor Billy has created a culture (so to speak) of getting old buildings torn down, mainly thanks to his employment with UDI.

Gary,

Today's Herald-Sun has an article on the new use for the Citizens National Bank (East Main & Mangum).

Photo credit goes to... Endangered Durham. :)

~John

PS
Family & Youth Services bought the 10,000 sq ft building for $1 million on Wednesday.

Phil

Indeed - what's left of it. I just hope someone can put the brakes on the insatiable desire to demolish out here. It's so odd to me to recapitulate the same mistake. Perhaps the commercial area at Angier and Driver will be spared - but we're turning it into an island.

Anon

No doubt we have a culture of demolition in Durham, and a lot of suburbanites in office. There are still people that think we should be creating cul-de-sacs and plastic houses downtown with public money.

John

Thanks - they called me yesterday for permission (which was nice of them.) I'm shocked that Family and Youth Services is paying $1 Million for downtown real estate. Isn't there something cheaper around?

GK

Does anyone know what the large white building to the west of the A&P was?

John

Edgemont School. Coming up next week.

GK

I wondered if that was Edgemont School! Can't wait until next week!

That Pope Mattress building housed Bell's Used Merchandise for many years. I have fine memories of the place. In the late '80s I bought an antique armoire there for $200. (I still use it.) The place was heated with a kerosene heater, and the air was thick. You had to climb over furniture. But he had pretty much anything you wanted.

Barry

Thanks for the additional info - incidentally, I enjoy your work!

GK

I recently moved into a house on Chapel Hill Rd. in Tuscaloosa-Lakewood. Apparently the Pope family used to own my house and one next door. There is a large concrete pad near the rear of the property which apparently used to be the foundation of the building where they manufactured the mattresses. According to neighbors, it was falling in and torn down in 2011 when the house was renovated.

I remember when there was a grocery store (I think-maybe a Colonial Store-pre the one on Main St) and Grace's 5 & 10 next door. (Bell's and Pope's Mattress buildings) Drug store used to be on the southwest corner (late 40s, early 50s). Also in the 60s NC News (newspaper/magazine distributor was along that same area). Can't remember the name of the drug store.

Anon I hadn't notice a change in that wall, which had been in terrible shape for a long time. (top collapsing inward, old tie-rods installed to hold it in place.) Regardless, no argument that it couldn't persist in that condition and would have needed to be repaired for the buildings to remain viable / stable. GK

This was a Penders grocery in the 30s

I drive by those buildings quite often and had noticed during the past month the wall (that's a half wall now in the picture) closest to Alston Ave had collapsed to what looked to be an extreme hazard to pedestrians and vehicles. Then I saw the green signs.

I bought some used furniture there years ago. It has been closed and vacant for years now...

Oh that means Bell's Furniture is no longer there. Remember for years seeing the sign and all he had for sale sitting out front, going to my grandmothers house on Hyde Park. Mr. Bell and his wife are awesome people, sad to see buildings that are part of my childhood memories, and others before me, being torn down instead of used.

I used to visit with C. A. Pope, the owner and manager of Pope Mattress, frequently when I was a young man. He was about 90 years old at the time, but was full of wonderful Durham stories. He was the son of George and Nannie Carlton Pope and the grandson of Erasmus Pope. Erasmus is buried at Mt. Sylvan Church just down Roxboro from where he and his second wife, Jane Markham, lived with his son and daughter-in-law, Henry Jackson and Anna Emerson Pope, in the beautiful steamboat gothic house where H J and Anna Pope's great-granddaughter lives today. If you haven't done a post on that house (and the multi-generational Pope houses that surround it), you should. I think the house was built by the original superintendent of Orange Factory.

Curtis, do you know if this is the same family as that of dear Velera Pope, who recently passed at the age of 92? I'm guessing it must be, as her family was in the mattress business, though I thought they manufactured mattresses at a different site.